NEWARK — Newark mayoral candidate and former assistant state Attorney General Shavar Jeffries has laid out his plan to tackle perhaps the single biggest issue in the 2014 city election: Public safety.

"Our plan is rooted in practices that are proven to be true," Jeffries told a room of roughly 70 supporters at the Philemon Missionary Baptist Church in Newark's South Ward.

The plan focuses on three central areas — prevention, enforcement and re-entry — that Jeffries said are founded in approaches to statewide law enforcement he helped engineer and implement during his time as an assistant Attorney General.

• Using data and community input to identify worst offenders and anticipate crime in dangerous areas.

• Re-establishing "one-stop" re-entry centers that train and help place ex-convicts in jobs.

Flanked by former East Orange Police Director Jose Cordero, who helped craft the plan, Jeffries pointed to violence in the South Ward, where he lives with his wife and children, as an example of the need for "transformational change" in how policing is done in Newark.

"The streets of the south are a war zone," Jeffries said, citing a 40 percent increase in ward killings over the last several years. "The ward suffers more murders than any other ward in the city."

Jeffries said his experience working for state Attorney General Anne Milgram was crucial in drafting his plan and eventually executing it, if elected. He touted statewide reductions in crime during his tenure, a doubling of the graduation in the juvenile detention program, and a statewide reduction of recidivism by 26 percent.

Citing his own experience, Jeffries said the three city councilmen running against him, Ras Baraka, Anibal Ramos and Darrin Sharif, are too inexperienced with law enforcement to make immediate headway on public safety.

"If I got on an airplane and the pilot got on the intercom saying, 'This is my first time flying the plane, but sit tight, everything will be OK,' I'm getting off that plane," Jeffries said.